I’m partway through writing an article that will end up with this scene from The Patchwork Girl of Oz, the 1914 movie adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel that he oversaw as co-founder of the Oz Film Manufacturing Co. of Hollywood, California.

The figure seated farthest on the right, in minstrel-show blackface, is both shamefully racist and reassuringly progressive. That’s the paradox I’m trying to explore in this article.